Bad things in 3s??? or more???

So it was a bad week. A really bad week. Started out good enough. Came home from my trip. Spent great time with my family & dogs. Monday, picked up Kyle's friend to spend the night. Blah, blah, blah.

One of the things we found out this week was that the airline will be laying off 170 pilots out here in the west. Fortunately, Ron has oodles of pilots below him, so he'll still have a job. Unfortunately, he falls 10 pilots short of keeping his captain's position. The only good thing is he's at the tail end of the list, and they're laying off about 10 a month, so he should be safe for a while, and you never know what will happen above him. We just have to wait, and hope, and pray.

Monday, Kyle & I drove over to pick up a friend of his to spend the night. All was fine until about midnight, when Kyle woke me to tell me Jimmy was sick and had called his dad to pick him up. Poor Jimmy. He was sick. He went home, but his dad called the next morning to ask if he could come back, since now he was fine. Okay...

We were taking the boat out for the first time all summer. When it's miserably hot here, there's not much better than being out on the lake. So we loaded up and headed out. I pulled the boat off the trailer and heard it making a funny noise. Got out of the no-wake zone & up to speed and the noise went away. Still, when I went back to the dock to pick up Ron, I made sure he listened. Sounded like a belt, so we headed out into the lake.

We stopped in a cove for the boys to swim. The water was a bit ucky since the algae had just recently bloomed, but it was cool. We blew up the tube and took Jimmy for a ride. While Jimmy was riding, Kyle noticed some smoke coming out the rear of the boat. Hmmm. Exhaust? A few minutes later we noticed a burning rubber smell. Definitely not exhaust. Tried to open the engine cover but smoke poured out. Closed the engine cover, got out the fire extinguisher and waited.

Eventually the smoke cleared, we were able to limp the boat to the middle of the lake, and flag a wonderful family down to tow us back to the launch. Ron did a brilliant job of threading the trailer right onto the boat and we returned home. Needless to say the boat needs a bit of work.

Snoopy is still having butt issues, so back to the vet we went. It seems he's developed an infection of some sort (staph? yeast?) but the vet doesn't think it's serious. He's on antibiotics for a week. Still, I am worried about him because his breathing seems so shallow & rapid. Odds are he's fine, but of course, I worry too much.

The rest of the week seemed to be okay, until Friday. Friday I took Kyle for his weekly hockey lesson. Two of Kyle's teammates wanted him to stay after his lesson to play pond hockey, but Kyle didn't want to stay. We were entering the freeway on-ramp when I rear-ended another SUV. Thankfully all are okay (well, the humans anyway) but my little Pilot is definitely in need of some serious repair (radiator, side panels, hood...) And I think I scared the hell out of Kyle (and myself.) The highway patrolman was very kind. He reminded me that's why we carry insurance. Accidents happen. And no one was hurt. Only property. So while I am Pilot-less for a while, I am fortunate that both Kyle & I are fine and everything will be fixed with time.

With all this in mind, take care, please drive safely, and enjoy your summer!